


Take It Off

by ssrhpurgatory



Series: Pre-canon ficlets and snippets [2]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26242102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory
Summary: Rosemary gets splashed with a Decima sample. Hilbert (terrible 90s alias: Karl Kelley) has concerns.
Relationships: Alexander Hilbert & Original Female Character, Alexander Hilbert/Original Female Character
Series: Pre-canon ficlets and snippets [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047574
Kudos: 1





	Take It Off

“You heard me. Take. It. Off.”

Rosemary stared at Karl with a strange expression on her face. “Why, Dr. Kelley, I hardly know you. And here you are asking me to strip for you?”

Karl let out a little hiss of frustration. “At least half of your clothing is now contaminated by Decima. We must remove it and scrub you down as soon as possible.”

“And you’ve just called decontamination and containment. With this level of contamination I'm either already infected or I'll be fine until they get here, but either way I am not stripping down in front of you, thank you _very_ much.” 

Karl sighed. She did have a point. Chances of accidental infection would probably increase if she was not careful getting out of her suit. 

“I am sorry,” he said instead of insisting further. “I was not taking sufficient precautions.”

Rosemary was standing stiffly, holding her damp arms away from her body in a manner that looked distinctly uncomfortable and perhaps even painful, but she still managed to give him a comforting smile. “It's all right. I should have realized you couldn't see me.”

“That is no excuse. You almost always come by my lab at this time on Tuesdays—”

“I'm short, Dr. Kelley,” she said, her smile turning a little pained. “I'm used to people overlooking me.” 

Karl stared at her for a long, quiet moment, impressed by her resilience in the face of what could well prove to be a fatal lab accident for her. “They should not,” he said finally, and for an instant so short he might have imagined it, her expression turned into one of longing. 

And then, people in biohazard suits came through the door, and, more quickly than he had expected, the mess had been cleaned up and they had both been bundled away behind plastic curtains for decontamination. An hour or so later, the decon team had packed their gear up, leaving Karl and Rosemary standing awkwardly in the middle of his lab, both scrubbed down and wearing ill-fitting cotton clothing and, to Karl’s surprise, both entirely hairless. He'd heard a pair of clippers, but hadn't realized they planned to shave Rosemary bald. 

“Do I need to go into quarantine, Dr. Kelley?” she asked in her usual efficient voice. 

He shook his head numbly. “No. You will not be contagious. I will monitor you for symptoms, do regular blood tests to check for presence of virus in your system, but…” he trailed off, still looking at her in apologetic horror. 

“Right. Then I'm off to do something about all of this—” she gestured down at the rumpled outfit with rolled up sleeves and cuffed ankles and plastic shoes that she'd ended up in— “And I suggest you do the same,” she finished, before heading towards the door. 

Karl could have followed her back to the apartment building where they both lived. Perhaps he should have. But for all that he'd only known her a few months, he knew her well enough to sense that she did not want company at the moment. So instead, he sat down at his freshly sterilized lab table and took his glasses off and sank his head into his hands and let out the great shout of anxiety he'd been holding in since he'd accidentally upended the tray of Decima samples over Rosemary. 

It would take him months of careful work to rebuild his supply of the virus, but that was not what had him worried.

No, what had him worried was the fact that Decima was nowhere near ready for human trials, and the thought that it might take months of careful work to make sure that Rosemary did not die in too much pain. 

She came by his lab again later that evening, back to her normal well-dressed self, with what must be a wig on her head and eyebrows drawn in with makeup. And she had nodded her approval at the work he had already done to prepare the new batch of samples, and had been so much her usual cheery self that Karl had almost been able to forget what had happened. 

It was only at the end of her visit, when she leaned her forearms on his lab table and said in a serious voice, “We should work out a schedule for testing,” that he finally remembered what was wrong.


End file.
